A long Covid, or Over the Wall — Friday 9th April 2021
Tomorrow I will have been posting these diary entries for a year.
I started writing them in April 2020 and posted the first a year out from when I wrote it, in April last year. And the one I post below will be the penultimate entry.
I’ve given little thought recently to what I might do once I post the last one. Will I keep writing these little diary entries? It feels unlikely. It’ll live here as a record of a couple of years of my life, from the first lockdown to tomorrow, and the things I did and thought over that period.
And what’s on my mind right now?
The conversation I had earlier about Citizen Assemblies is still ringing around my head. I’m excited about the idea of citizen groups and cooperative working flourishing all over the place, and in my little patch of the world, in the coming months and years. Maybe it’ll be what I work on next, or part of it at least. I think it probably will.
I visited my new office for the first time today. We’ve been moved in for over a week but today was the first time I felt physically able to leave the house and venture into Liverpool after having had Covid.
It was a bright day out and the area where we’re based felt buzzy and alive. People sat on the street having a coffee and chatting. It felt good to be there and to stretch my legs and test out my lung capacity. I feel optimistic about the work that I do and who I do it with and where I do it. And happy to take some of my notepads and other things in to put on my desk.
It’s just gone 4 pm now and I’m back at home. Nina came to join me on the couch a moment ago and is now chirruping away under the coffee table. She and Woody were happy to see me when I got back from the office and I was happy to see them. I miss them when I’m out working.
It’s going to be a sunny weekend here in Liverpool. Maybe I’ll get out for a walk with Max.
Below is a picture I took two years ago of Max with an Easter egg, and below that is an entry from my diary written this time last year.
Friday 9th April 2021
A weird but largely excellent day, that.
I had a chat with Amy this morning before my first meeting of the day and she told me how happy she was in her new relationship. So much so that she’s thinking about getting two kittens and is reconsidering all of the things that she’s spent the last couple of years telling me that she’s closed herself off from — namely getting remarried and having more kids. There is a very real chance that he’ll be moving into the house at City Road when the contract on his apartment finishes, too.
And I couldn’t possibly be happier with that news, to tell you the truth.
Good for her, and good for Max. And good for me. Hope for stability, at last.
I started writing the above at 10:30 or so and it’s now almost midnight. Anna and I had a chat when she finished work and Max came downstairs to lie next to me on the couch. He’s lying there still, fast asleep, and I’m sitting at the other end of the couch, typing this, and with Star Wars on the telly. Anakin Skywalker has now become Darth Vader but still has his real limbs. I forgot how much of the film is left after that happens.
My friend Jo launched her Mayoral Manifesto today for the mayoral elections in May. It’s excellent and has a lot of vitally important bits in it and I cheered as I read it. It is hopeful and offers a vision of a city that I’d quite like to live in.
As I read it, it was announced that Prince Philip had died. The BBC cancelled all none news coverage to have a full day of the Queen's Husband is dead and let’s hear what some people have to say about it type coverage. I haven’t seen any of it but I suspect there are a lot of stories about him fighting Nazis and being a good husband and being sad for the Queen. And maybe not so much about him being racist occasionally.
This afternoon I went out for a 2-hour wander with an old friend who is back from living somewhere else after splitting from his partner, who had become quite taken with conspiracy theories about vaccines and 5G and people being programmed. I felt bad for him but he was in reasonable spirits and we had a nice chat as we did a few loops of Stanley Park and a loop of the cemetery.
It’s just gone midnight and so today is now tomorrow and later today I’ll finish writing this and so will need to think of a good ending for it. If I write a 1,700-word ending I’ll have written 100,000 words in the 12 months I’ve been writing it, but far more important than that is that I’ve continued with it.
I think I’ve probably put more in here about how I’m feeling than I have in the journal I keep daily in my Midori notebooks. In stopping this, I’ll have to commit to being a bit more open and giving a bit more to that and capture more and go deeper into it. A good idea for my mental health, and a richer journaling experience.
Max is doing little snores. He should be doing them in bed and so should I.
Anakin and Obi-Wan are about to scrap it out on Mustafar here. I think I’ll watch this and then head up to sleep.
Very good.
This is part of a series of diary entries I wrote from April 2020 to April 2021. I’m posting them a year out from when I first wrote them. You can read the other ones I’ve posted here
